two slow dancers ft. @centuryblues ... βhanjae, youβre awake.β she tries to sound steady. her voice is quiet and careful, though her eyes brighten up and betray her otherwise calm disposition. the years have rearranged her completely, but a part of hyeonju still hopes he notices her for it. old habits never truly die out, she thinks. she tips the bottle in his direction with a raised brow, βwant a glass?β
the world is small and hanjae's seemed to be smaller when he extended haneul an invitation for lunch. it's nothing out of the ordinary; if the brothers were to ever do anything together, they would go out to eat. what wasn't routine was how the last time shin hyeonju came around, she showed up beside haneul: both were a little late, a little too deep in a fluster that hanjae's mind could not seem to sort out. 'oh, you've met?' "we had some classes together," hanjae tells his brother. he shakes the girl's hand and gestures them both into the restaurant. there was a time, however, when hyeonju would wait for hanjae outside of the university study. he never had the pleasure of taking her hand to lead them to their corner of the library but he does hover. his hand hovers right behind her elbow, where her knowledge and wonder is binded through notebooks. there was reading, there was talking. but mostly, there was laughter. a part of hanjae's mind seemed to relax. his stress was able to unfold like it hadn't in days, or weeks, or years. his lungs twisted until their jokes died out behind open palms. maybe it was memories lost in translationβmaybe he read into it all and he was after all, hyeonju's good friend, her senior, and a confidant. it doesn't exactly strike hanjae as a loss when he finds that his mouth still splits when he saw her in the kitchen. one side tilts up the way it does when he's trying a little too hard to not smile. "should i be worried? that you all seem to be able to turn every occasion into a sort of..." his expression softens entirely. "drinking game?" hanjae reaches for the neck of the bottle and shakes his head. "wait for the good company to wake. i'll make you something else." he waits for no confirmation. instead, he saunters over to the cupboard and tucks the bottle away on the highest shelf. "it should help you sleep." from a small tin, hanjae sifts through leaves in search for the vibrant, whole parts. "two leaves and a bud," he sings. it followed no familiar tune, just something in a sing-a-song tone. "i made this for haneul whenever he got sick. or you know, was hungover." a 'tsk' follows.
